Search Engine Terms

Below is a list search engine terms that are commonly used, particularly with the context of SEO. What does all this internet terminology mean? – Our glossary should help.

Algorithm
The criteria and techniques used by a search engine to establish the relevance of a page for a key word or key phrase entered by a web surfer. Algorithms vary, often considerably, between search engines.

Boolean Search
Specifying that certain types of results should be shown by using modifying search words, such as NOT, AND, OR etc.

Deep Linking
The process of linking to sub-pages of another website, rather than the homepage, which is the usual practice. As part of an SEO effort, this is often done to improve the rankings of deeper pages, in order to optimise for a wider range of phrases than is possible if focusing purely on the homepage.

Hummingbird
The new Google search engine algorithm, introduced in the 2nd half of 2013.
Related post: What is Google Hummingbird?

Keyword or Keyphrase
These are the words and phrases typed in by search engine users to find what they are looking for. In turn, they are also the terms that webmasters include in the text of their web pages to bring in targeted visitors.

Panda
The Google Panda update is an improvement to the main algorithm with the goal of reducing the prevalence of results with little or low quality web page content.
Related post: What is Google Panda?

Penguin
The Google Penguin was first introduced in 2012 and has been improved on several times since. Its aim is to reduce search engine spam by targeting unethical link building strategies.
Related post: What is Google Penguin?

Phrase Search
Searching documents that contain the exact phrase entered by the user. On the most popular search engines, this is achieved by placing the phrase between quotation marks.

SERPs
Search Engine Results Pages – The results displayed by a search engine in response to a query.

Spider
The program used by a search engine to following links between web pages and websites, in order to add pages to its index, as well as to establish the nature of content on each page.

Stop Words
Terms that are often less important to a search, including articles, prepositions and conjunctions, such as “a”, “at”, “and” etc. These words are often ignored or devalued by search engines when returning results.